Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has emerged winner of the National Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) Diamond Prize for Excellence in Innovative Leadership.
Governor Sule was declared winner of the award during a colourful dinner celebrating the Diamond anniversary of the NIPR, which held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja on Thursday.
Introducing the winners across eleven various aspects of leadership, Professor Emmanuel Dandaura, NIPR Vice President, said the institute awarded the leadership following recommendations based on the performance of various leaders and how these leaders fit into the prizes identified.
Professor Dandaura announced that each winner of the prize will also take away two hundred thousand naira as cash prize for the diamond prize in excellence in a given area.
Thereafter, Governor Sule was declared as the winner of the NIPR Diamond Prize in Innovative Leadership.
In his response, Governor Sule stressed the significance of public relations especially in an era of fake news and social media excesses.
The Governor particularly commended the NIPR for seeking to establish an institute of public relations in the country, with the first of such institutes to be established in Nasarawa State.
According to him, establishing the public relations institute will provide the much needed platform to blend knowledge with practice, which will add value to media experts, journalists and graduates of communication.
“I don’t know how an Engineer will come to a public relations event and say a few words. But it’s an assignment given to me. How did I get here? I got here because I believe public relations is liberty and liberty is public relations. In an era of the social media where all sort of things can be said, that can lead you to love somebody you can hate and can lead you to hate somebody you should love.
“There is no better time than for us to grab an opportunity. For us in Nasarawa State, we try to look for opportunities and we grab them. When we saw the opportunity for the public relations institute we came into it and believe very strongly that Nasarawa State needs one, Nigeria needs one, Africa needs one. We are happy that the first one to be established in Nigeria will be established in Nasarawa State.
“We have so many media experts who have no public relations. We have so many journalists who have no public relations. We have so many people with degree in communications and they have zero public relations. And that is the reason why we see public relations as leadership.
“Indeed, from my background of mechanical engineering and mechanical technology, I want to see how I can take knowledge and bring practice and put them together to produce one. That is exactly what we are doing by establishing this institute of public relations in Nasarawa State ” he stated.